Rapid City drivers who repeatedly park illegally will now face a heftier fine.  The Rapid City Council recently approved an ordinance that will allow parking enforcement officers to place a boot on vehicles with five or more outstanding tickets or with unpaid parking tickets totaling more than $100 dollars.  Lt. James Johns with the Rapid City Police Department says that when the idea was first proposed there were more than 19-hundred unpaid handicap parking tickets which totaled around $19-thousand dollars.

Lt. Johns says, "It's not a money grab by the city by any means, just a matter of we use parking revenues to pay off bonds, things like that and there's people out there that choose to not pay their parking tickets. You know, a handicap ticket is a $100 ticket, so if you're out there parking illegally in a handicap spot, you need to get that taken care of and make sure you don't end up on our boot list."

In addition to the parking fees, the fee to remove the boot will increase from $50 to $100 dollars.  The changes go into effect June 15th.

Justin Pazera